


Etched Into Your Skin

by bookcasesandfandoms



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Blood, F/F, Minor Character Death, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-08
Updated: 2018-05-08
Packaged: 2019-05-04 00:05:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14580609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookcasesandfandoms/pseuds/bookcasesandfandoms
Summary: Even though Yasha and Beau first met the night before the carnival, they shared their lives through writings that appeared on their skin since they were children.





	Etched Into Your Skin

**Author's Note:**

> A prompt from: anonymus
> 
> Beauyasha prompts? How about a soulmate of your choice? and if you can't think of any here's some random ones. You suddenly see colour once your soulmate touches you. You and your soulmate have matching / similar / connecting tattoos. When ur soulmate writes on their skin, it appears on yours. Soulmate's name is on your wrist. Thank you <3 <3 <3

The burning sensation woke her up.

Being trained to stay vigilant of danger at any given moment, even if she was asleep, Yasha rushed to her feet, holding her pocket knife in her hands, ready to strike. But there was no danger to be seen. All the other children were sleeping soundly, snoring quietly and everything seemed to be as peaceful as it could be.

Yasha remained alert however, glancing down at her wrist, where she felt the painful burn. In her skin, like pouring fire appeared a scribble of sorts, as if someone got messy with a paint brush and accidentally got the paint on their hands as well.

Yasha looked around, confused, expecting to spot the child that played this prank on her, but then the pain returned, bringing her attention back to her wrist. Another scribble appeared, more of a picture this time, a child-made drawing of a pig. She watched with her own eyes the paint beginning to appear on her skin with all the colours of the rainbow and she watched it suddenly begin to disappear, as if it was whipped of from her skin with a piece of cloth.

"Hey, what are you doing up?" A voice shouted at her from the cavern's entrance and Yasha darted back to her sleeping roll to hide from the guards, that were supposed to keep an eye on the children.

She quickly rolled her torn sleeve over her palm and tucked her arm under her body. In her short life she saw all kinds of sea monsters you could imagine, but this scared her far more.

 

It wasn't the last time she felt the burning sensation and knew, that something new appeared on her skin.

She would never inspect it when other children or the guards were around. She managed to steal a pair of poorly made socks from another kid, turning them into gloves that covered most of the otherwise exposed skin of her arms. Most of the other children already made fun of her appearance, she wasn't human after all. Her deadly pale skin and differently coloured eyes made a her a easy target for their snickering. At least, until she grew twice their height. No one dared to laugh at her then.

The strange pain was soon dulled by the unbearable ache of her muscles, as the work got harder and harder and Yasha stopped caring about the strange markings that came and were gone before should could look at them.

 

It wasn't until she escaped from her imprisonment, running for her life from capturers and posing as a sell-sword that accompanied the caravans travelling west, towards the Empire. She stopped hiding her skin back then, and the shifting tattoos made her somewhat of a legend among the common folk. Everyone wanted to see the colourful. always changing painting on her skin, even if most of the time, they were poorly drawn faluses or swear words from a rather colourful vocabulary, that even she never heard. She still couldn't explain to them, how she was doing this, and in each city the caravan went to, she searched for answers from mages, sorceress and alchemist.

No one was ever able to explain it.

 

As she was growing older, the writing had changed with her.

The teenage scribbles disappeared and one day, her entire body was covered with only one name.

'Keiran'

This time the markings didn't disappear for days, only in some parts they were whipped off and rewritten.

'Why did you leave me here?'

'Who am I without you?'

'I can't go on without you.'

Yasha bought a cloak that day to cover herself from neck to feet, and kept it on for weeks, despite the hot weather.

On her palms appeared the word 'bottles' and as each day passed, several new lines appeared under it, until her palms were black with ink. It went on for weeks. The words slowly started to fade away, as if they were being slowly washed of.

One day she woke up clean, without a single strike of ink.

 

Years went by without her skin changing, even though it still remained on her mind and she always remained vigilant, hiding as much of her skin as possible under her clothes and armour.  
Yasha joined the Travelling Carnival of Curiosities, meeting the charming tiefling Mollymauk and despite their differences, they became quick friends.

He was the one that spotted her skin changing again.

On her back and neck appeared marking written in a language that she could not understand and not even Molly knew their exact meaning.

"It's some sort of ritual, that's without a doubt." He said from behind her, as he traced the ink with his hands. "I think I saw something similar from the monks on the eastern side of the Empire. It's supposed to be a joining of a sort." He laughed, as he pulled her shirt back down. "Guess you are a part of a cult now."

"As if I wasn't already." She sighed, resigned, but somewhat glad that the markings were now on her back, where no one other than Molly could see.

"When we get to Zadash, you can ask the mages there. I'm sure they can help you figure this out, whatever it is."

Yasha didn't share his optimism.

  
\---

  
Beauregard woke up sore that morning, partially from the climbing that she and her brother done the previous day, but also because of all the scratches and gashes she got from the thorn bush she fell into.

Her body ached, but nothing hurt more than her back. She wasn't aware that she had a wound there, so she took of her nightgown and went to look to the mirror.

In bold letters, written in ink as crimson as blood she had 'You are not one of us, wingless' stretching across her back. She could feel the ink seeping into her skin, the pain spreading over to her stomach, where slowly, as if someone was just writing it, appeared 'No one lies to us'. She watched, as on her forehead, right beneath her hairline appeared 'Touched by evil'. It was only then, that he pain finally stopped.

Beauregard quickly pulled her shirt back over her head and arranged her bangs in a way that hid the message, and never told about tit to anyone, not even her brother.

 

The blood slowly disappeared, as if washed by rain, travelling down her body, until it vanished completely. Instead, a number appeared on the back of her hand. She sat in the lavatory long in the night that day, trying to scrub the number of her body, until her skin bled. The number still remained however, a slave's marking without a doubt.

Not long after that, names started to appear on her wrists and soon, the list was stretching all the way to her shoulders. From time to time, one of the names would be scraped and another would appear in it's place.

She was a little child back then and wearing puffed sleeves with gloves was normal, so no one noticed it for years.  
No one except of her brother, Keiran.

He made up all the craziest stories about what the names meant, from assassins' hit list to innkeepers' list of regular patrons. He promised that he would never speak about it to anyone else, and he did all he could to calm Beauregard, when she was upset about it.

He carried the secret to his grave.

 

By the time of his death, Beauregard stopped caring if anyone saw her arms that were now covered with dozens of stricken names, she even started wearing her sleeveless robes to show it off.

The names washed of the same way the first messages did, as if raindrops slowly carried the ink away.

But the writing returned soon after it, and in few days her entire body was covered with prayers addressed to the Stormlord, with his symbol, four rubies in a circle that was struck by lightnings from four sides.

The prayers would change from time to time, but their hopeful and desperate message remained the same for years.

 

They disappeared as well, only the Stromlord's symbol remained, as if it was repainted anew every day.

Her palms and wrists were now covered with little notes; about who owned her money, where the caravan was heading, little maps of the Empire with Zadash always marked as the centre point. They changed daily, until one day the settled on 'A silver per entrance', 'Two coppers for card reading' and 'Five gold for holding in arms', and they never changed.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading, if you have any other prompts for me, SFW or NSFW, feel free to leave them here.  
> Also sorry if I messed up something canon, I'm not quite caught up yet with the show.


End file.
